It wasn’t quite the result North Torrance wrestling coach Luke Santos was looking for, but it will do for now.

Behind strong performances from Kenny and Kevin Mai and heavyweight Mike Smith, North advanced to the Division III final of the CIF Southern Section Team Duals Saturday at Montclair High before losing, 30-23, to top-seeded Santa Fe.

North defeated Glendora, 40-25, in the first round and followed that with a 66-6 beating of California before defeating Lakewood, 38-25, but ran into trouble in the final.

“I’m not pleased,” North coach Luke Santos said. “If I was pleased, we would be CIF champions right now.”

“With that said, I thought they were consistent,” Santos added. “We put ourselves in a position to win at the end and (Santa Fe) just got some breaks and had things go their way.”

Kevin Mai (103 pounds) won all three of his matches, a major decision (15-0) against California, a pinfall in 30 seconds against Lakewood and a 9-2 decision in the final against Santa Fe.

Kenny Mai (112) also won his three matches, all decisions in the duals against California (17-2), Lakewood (15-2) and Santa Fe (12-3).

Mike Smith won all four of his matches at 275 pounds.

Santos mentioned Masato Fukushima, who won a 4-2 decision against Santa Fe at 119 pounds, as one of the unheralded standout performers of the grueling event for North.

“He was big for us today,” Santos said. “He’s a second-string guy who came on today and really kept us in the thick of it at the end.

“A lot of guys stepped up for us today and wrestled well. Our guys stepped it up and, at the end, just lost a close dual. But you can’t ask for anything more than the effort we got tonight.”

West Torrance also had a fairly impressive showing at the Duals, advancing to the Divisions III quarterfinals before losing to Quartz Hill, 49-21.

In the first round, West and Warren each finished with 36 points but West advanced to the second round based on Criteria F, which means it was the team that scored the greater number of first points in the matches.

Jake Harrinson (125 pounds) and Kyle Taketa (135) led the charge for West, scoring pinfall victories in the duals.

Ali Nazari scored two victories via decisions for West.

Chris Lee (103 pounds) lost against Warren, but scored a pinfall victory against Quartz Hill, which is ranked second in the Division III standings behind North Torrance.

“I was really happy with the way we wrestled today,” West coach Brian Notch said. “Quartz Hill is an excellent team and we fought them all the way down to the last match.

“Jake Harrison was outstanding today and so were Kyle (Taketa) and Ali (Nazari),” Notch added. “We had a lot of kids step up and wrestle great matches for us.”

South Torrance defeated host Montclair, 45-31, in the first round before losing to La Quinta, 43-25, in Division V.

Russell Buniel (140 pounds), Joe Derian (171) and Mark Martelaro (189) each won both of their matches in the duals.

Buniel scored a pinfall victory at 5 minutes, 7 seconds against Montclair and won a 10-8 decision against La Quinta.

Derian won by pinfall in both of his matches, at 1:01 against Montclair and at 1:45 against La Quinta.

“Joe was a standout guy for us today,” South coach Kenny Hetman said. “He was a big reason we got as far as we did.

“It was a solid showing for us,” Hetman added. “We have a young team and it was nice to get some experience wrestling at this level. It’s going to help us out greatly going into next year.”

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